Thanksgiving and the following week 10/16

Sunday morning - another beautiful day in Nova Scotia. Late to bed and up early for our drive to Halifax where we had lunch with Barb Stailing and Frank Burke. Barb used to have a cottage here at Cold Spring Head and we have stayed in touch over the years. Frank is quite the cook, always surprising us with tasty dishes, usually of a southeast Asian bent. Today we had a curried squash soup with shiitake mushrooms, a salad, and an excellent baguette, all topped off with blueberry and apple tarts from a nearby bakery. They now have two young kittens to brighten their days, and nights; the training process is ongoing.

Mid afternoon we drove over to Mike and Sally's (more Christies), just off the Armdale rotary, not far from the Armdale Yacht Club where I kept a sailboat during my time on the math faculty at Dalhousie University ('68 - '70). Mike and Sally have been most kind, making their home available to us during our annual Thanksgiving visits to Jeanne in Halifax while they spend the holiday with Sally's family on the Island, or Prince Edward Island, if you are from away.

Around five we went over to Jeanne's for early drinks and to allow me to contribute to the preparation of dinner by making the turkey gravy and ricing  potatoes. We were eight, Wayne served as photographer, for Jeanne's traditional Thanksgiving dinner topped off with a lovely mixed berry Pavlova [a meringue-based dessert named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, it has a crisp crust and soft, light inside] for desert; conversation ran the gamut from travel stories, books read, TV shows and films of interest, to Covid and politics. A good time was had by all and resulted in another late night.

Monday morning, Thanksgiving Day, we took a drive around downtown Halifax which is a work in progress, or perhaps one might say 'many works' since there are at present some thirty three high-rise construction cranes currently active in the city. Halifax is not the city I remember, with many small shops and restaurants, bars for men only with a separate room for women and couples, relatively few buildings over four or five stories high, and little traffic by contemporary standards; today it's a city of streets in the shadow of high rise buildings, a city of chain stores and chain restaurants, where it's hard to find a parking spot. 

Following my brief drive down memory lane, one lane of which was totally blocked by construction, we drove toward the north side of Halifax to visit Connie & Russ, whom we'd not seen for two years. First coffee, then breakfast, while catching up on family and friends, we swapped some recipes, after which we set off to see David McKillop in Truro for an hour before he had to leave and we had to get home. Driving the country roads between Truro and Amherst Shore in the late afternoon autumn sunlight brought home to us how much we love this country - the mixture of colourful countryside and seacoast, small dairy farms, old villages, piles of lobster traps, large bales of hay, unpicked corn with stalks slowly turning brown in the fields - almost heaven, Nova Scotia.

Tuesday morning, bright and early, I called Scott Refrigeration in Amherst to see if they could fix our washing machine which died last week. Sure enough, they had a man out at our house just after ten and all was resolved - a dead switch.  Then I cheated, I actually logged on to a US newspaper, The Washington Post, where I came across the following -  Prince Charles says his Aston Martin runs on wine and cheese byproducts - which I'm sure you will find exciting - I liked the title. Melanie has finished up the last of our apples, which means we may see a decline in the fruit fly population, and is now cooking down all the tomatoes into spaghetti sauces and the like. Also, in the course of reading the Post I came across a review of Hillary Clinton's new book, State of Terror which I ordered from Amazon to read on our Kindle Oasis - enjoyed it and hope she writes a sequel. Later we went over to Bud and Nancy's, together with the Tanguays, for dinner - don't know where the time goes but it was almost eleven o'clock before we got home and to bed following an evening of fine cheeses and dolmades, a shrimp and rice dish for dinner, ginger ice cream (did you make that Nancy?) and chocolate bark as we sat around with Louie and Chuckles (the dogs), after dinner - talk of families, health, local news, books, politics,.... on into the night - all in all such a fine evening the Tanguay's are planning to sponsor another 'get together' next week and we will do a rematch the following week. 

Melanie had her exercise class Wednesday morning - I took a walk of the non-power variety - following which we went into Amherst for groceries and to get some more CBD oil - I take about 1 cc every night before bed, it definitely helps me sleep, the best in years. Last night I slept through a long thunderstorm - Melanie told me about it in the morning, but we did not have any meteorites in our bed - After a fireball streaked through the Canadian sky, Ruth Hamilton, of British Columbia, found a 2.8-pound rock the size of a large man’s fist near her pillow. 

Still cloudy and damp Thursday morning. Big trucks are going up and down the lane; we'll have to take a walk, see what's going on - my guess is someone is raising their house to put in a basement - a walk around later yielded no answers. In the afternoon we visited Ian and Marjorie - plan was to visit for half an hour, it turned into two hours. Ian has been relieved of all medical pumps, lines, monitors, and other attachments, is looking very well, and though he won't be curling this winter golf next season is definitely in the picture.

Friday, after my walk, I drove over to Bud's to pick up a trailer hitch I'd loaned him, had to move our Casita away from the barn bay in which we've stored Unc's golf cart for lo these many years; at one point Bob and I had talked about fixing it up to use in Amherst but that never came to pass. On my way home I stopped by Don & Gloria Chase's for a visit - we've not seen them since 2019 so it was great to catch up, sharing stories of the last two years. Don is looking good and Gloria is hoping for a hip replacement in the next few months, lord knows she has been waiting for a long, long time. Also spent a few hours catching up on bills that came in mail from the States, first mail since we got here almost two months ago. A quiet evening at home following a beautiful sunset in the west and a rising moon in the east. This weekend will be the best of the fall colours. Watched the PBS evening news, read and to bed - having finished the new Hillary Clinton novel, which contained a mention of Gamache and Three Pines, this week I'm reading All the Devils are Here, another of the Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny.

Saturday morning Steve Banks, Paul Christie's son-in-law, came by to pick up Unc's golf cart which has been in our barn for around seventeen years - it's trailer was last licensed in 2002 . Steve has restored several other Harley carts so we may see it around the Shore next summer, or in at the golf club - I can't insure that Steve will keep the plaque "Old golfers never die, they just lose their balls" on the cart. In any case, Bob & I will gift the proceeds from the sale of the cart to the Amherst Golf Club in Unc's name. 

In the afternoon we went to Amherst to visit the new gallery, located on East Victoria Avenue in the building that used to house the music store, east of the RBC bank; it's just getting started and has a lot of empty space. The owners plan to have space for classes as well as displays. We also visited Bendi's gallery which is quite nice - painting supplies, several artists working there, lots of nice art work. It feels like people are trying to turn Amherst into a more active creative centre for the arts. 

In the evening we joined Heather and Hal and Don & Joan at Jack & Shirley's for happy hour and dinner, kind of a seasonal farewell party. Don and Joan are heading south with their RV and toad today, Sunday. Heather & Hal will be leaving Tuesday a week to fly to Orlando from Halifax; to complete the list - Fran & Tony are flying to Tucson from Moncton on the 29th, David & Beryl will be going around that time as will Paul & Joan and we plan to leave in mid November. It must be autumn: trees are turning, small birds are gathering on telephone lines, and the geese are heading south.